As I write this it is one week until my youngest daughter starts Junior Kindergarten. It will be the first time we drop her off at a “big school”, rather than the preschool that she attended for the last two years. It got me thinking that a lot of parents are soon going to be dealing with school drop-offs, and trying to figure out how to deal with kids who are afraid of leaving your side.

The preschool that both my daughters attended was awesome. The women who work there have all been trained in Adlerian methods. Named after Alfred Adler, this is a values-based method of raising children. The principles align very well with my own beliefs. And it was at this preschool that we first heard the phrase “The happy snappy drop off”. Whether or not they coined the term, I’m not sure. But I love it.

What is a happy snappy drop off? It’s quite possibly the best way to deal with kids who seem to suffer from separation anxiety, or kids who are resistant to entering school without Mom or Dad next to them.

The principle is simple enough. Maintain a happy state of mind and be matter-of-fact with your child about what’s happening. They’ll be going to school and you’ll be there to pick them up when the day is done. There is no discussion, no debate, and no negotiation about it. It’s just what goes on, and the child needs to learn to understand the new routine. Don’t think of yourself as some kind of drill sergeant, but more like the sign on a store window telling you the opening and closing hours. They are just facts, and you’re the informant to your child.

Under perfect conditions, the child realizes there is no choice and simply goes. But what if they throw a tantrum and cling to you? The trick is to prepare in advance. At my daughter’s preschool they simply come up to the clingy child and carefully pry her off the parent’s leg. It’s all friendly. They carry the child into the classroom and close the door. That’s it. I’ve witnessed them comforting a child behind closed doors, but they don’t let Mom and Dad into the room to help. They want you out. It’s the fastest way for your child to adjust.

So how do you prepare in advance? You need to have a partner in crime. You need to speak to someone at your child’s school in advance to arrange for a human pry-bar. You need to take yourself out of the equation once you do your parenting job by safely getting your kids to school. Call up the school and ask them for help. I think you’ll be surprised how willing they are to help out.

But let’s back up for a moment here. Let’s chat about what you should be doing in the weeks or days leading up to the first day of school … and sorry … I should have published this last week to give you more time to prepare!

I recommend that you discuss the school drop off process with your child. Explain to him what time you’ll arrive, who else will be there, and what you’ll be doing while he is attending school. You shouldn’t drop this news on your child like a first day of school psychological bomb! Prepare them.

But don’t over-discuss the topic either. Your job is to educate your child about what will happen ahead of time, not to discuss it to the point of generating more fear. Remember this might be a bit scary for them. Think of yourself in a similar scary situation. Imagine you’re afraid to drive over narrow bridges, and someone tells you that you’ll be doing exactly that next week. If they start explaining every aspect of the bridge-crossing, it will just freak you out even more. So don’t over talk. Just explain the basics and keep it friendly.

If you sense some hesitation from your child, you might also want to take him to the school ahead of time and show him the school yard. Show him the door he’ll be entering. Ask if you can show him the classroom too. The school won’t mind.

You can also discuss what kind of comfort objects they might like to take into the class with them. Every child has a favorite stuffed toy, soft blanket or similar object. There’s nothing wrong with letting him bring it to school. Just remember to explain to your child that it’s his job to bring it home.

Remember that your job is to prepare your kids to be independent adults, not to protect them from all of life’s little discomforts.

Enjoy your children,
Chris Thompson

Do you ever sit there thinking about problems? I do it all the time. Either in bed, or in the shower, or when working out … I usually run through challenges I’m having and I find that I often come up with new ideas or just new ways of thinking about a problem.

Today I was thinking about the issue of behavioral problems in toddlers and children. I came up with a new way of framing the problem as follows:

Behavioral issues are really only driven by two potential causes.

The first cause is a lack of training. We all learn the rules by either watching someone else screw up and get punished, or by doing it ourselves. This is true whether it be a traffic ticket (financial penalty), lost car keys (general “pain in the butt” penalty), eating unhealthy (“getting fat” penalty), or any other behavior that we choose, which has an obvious logical consequence. Kids learn the exact same way. Parents need to establish rules and let their kids learn to predict the outcome of following the rule vs breaking the rule. If you don’t do this (as a parent), you’re not going to solve behavioral problems in toddlers and children.

The second cause is a child’s emotional state. I talk a lot about this because it is SO critical. Let’s establish two useful labels for emotional states. They can either be “resourceful” states, or they can be “unresourceful” states. These come straight from my NLP and Ericksonian hypnosis training, by the way. A resourceful state is required to follow rules such as actually wanting to decide to clean up toys, or eat only in the kitchen, or get dressed for school. An unresourceful state is often the cause of a child NOT following a rule that he’d ordinarily follow. Temper tantrums are highly connected to unresourceful states.

A person’s emotional state can be controlled just like a car with a steering wheel. But you need to know how to turn the wheel, which is exactly what I teach in the Talking to Toddlers course.

I recently added an article talking a bit more about behavioral issues in toddlers and children. I hope you read it and enjoy some new perspectives.

You’ll find lots of other parenting articles and tips on this site too.

Enjoy your children,
Chris Thompson

Today I want to share a simple experience with you. It’s about turning a crappy day into a great day. There was no magic in how it happened. It’s totally obvious and it will work every time.

I’ve been meaning to write about this for a while but somehow I didn’t. So I’m doing it now.

It was a weeknight around 4:30pm. It wasn’t quite dinner time yet and I was home alone with the kids while my wife was out teaching a fitness class. The kids were starting to get a bit hungry, tired, cranky, and perhaps most important … they were a bit bored. We all know that boredom is a massive trigger for misbehavior.

Sometimes all you need to do is give your kids some positive attention. But I’m talking about REAL attention, not half-assed pretending to listen to them or pretending to interact with them while you prepare dinner or clean the kitchen.

I was getting dinner prepped that night. I noticed that my kids were not in the best mood. Quite frankly, neither was I. I don’t remember the exact details, but we’ve all been there. I just didn’t feel at my best.

I knew I needed to start prepping the meal but I decided to change the mood first. I went over to my computer and fired up iTunes. For some reason I put on The Village People (In The Navy, YMCA, etc). It’s classic stuff that makes everyone want to dance like a total idiot (I mean that in a good way).

The three of us (my two daughters and I) all just smiled at each other. I grabbed their hands and we started to boogie on the kitchen floor. We did this together for about 10 minutes. We got our blood and oxygen flowing. We laughed. We smiled.

After the dancing was over, I left the music playing and I got them involved in helping me prepare the food. But the good feelings from the music and the dancing totally transformed the way everyone felt for the rest of the evening.

Dancing and acting silly makes people feel good. All people – not just toddlers and children. Turn on the music and turn it up! Dance with your kids. Sing out loud. Act like a fool. Enjoy yourself. You’ll love how it cranks up everybody’s positive feelings. The best part of it all … the feeling lasts for a long time after you stop dancing and singing. It brightens the rest of your day. It makes you think back and smile. Just do it.

Enjoy your children,
Chris Thompson

Over the last few years I’ve come across countless situations were parents feel like they don’t know how to deal with toddlers and preschoolers. Parents get stressed out because of the “bad behavior” and I’ve received plenty of emails from those who feel that they’ve failed at being a parent. If this describes you then I’d like to invite you to enter my world and learn more about how you can take advantage of language as a toolbox for change. Parenting toddlers and preschoolers can go back to being fun again. All you need is a willingness to learn, and an appreciation for new advice.

Remember when your baby was born? Sure, it was stressful at times. It was a huge change in your life. You didn’t always know why your child was crying. But you quickly discovered the main culprits of temperature, hunger, gas, a soiled diaper, or fatigue. Those were rather easy problems to solve, and you didn’t need any special skills. You didn’t have to ask your baby what was wrong. You just learned to figure it out based on “reading” your baby’s behavior.

Then sometime between 12-24 months your baby became a toddler. Crawling turned into walking, and mutterings turned into real words. Your child would point at things, ask for things, and literally freak out if you said “No”. Am I right so far?

I’m going to give you the single most important advice that I think all parents of toddlers need to understand. Ready? Accept that children in the age range of two to four have almost no reasoning skills. Logic is usually a bad way to approach a problem. That’s it. Once you appreciate this, your ability to prevent tantrums will have suddenly skyrocketed.

One of my pet peeves is when people write advice about what not to do, but they don’t give you any useful suggestions on how to replace the old habit. So let me expand upon this statement. Let’s pretend that your toddler or preschooler is messing around in the kitchen and is dragging pots and pans out of the cabinet. You know that you’ll have to clean this up. You want the behavior to stop. Be honest now. In this situation, would you normally just tell your child to “stop” and take them out of the kitchen? If you answered “yes”, then you’ve tried to solve the problem by using logic, or by assuming your child will understand that this behavior is not allowed. Guess what? It almost always results in a tantrum.

So what do you do instead of using logic? Start managing your toddler’s state of mind. Change the focus of his or her attention. Use distraction or confusion techniques to create an opportunity to shift your child to a new activity. There are plenty of ways to deal with toddlers that don’t involve rational explanations or logic.

Here’s a quick way to get your toddler out of a messy situation without a fight. First, enter the child’s world. Say, “I see you are playing with these pots and making a lot of nose. That must be a lot of fun!” Next, start to distract your child with something simple such as a tickle and some laughing. This positions you in positive manner, not as the mother or father about to take away the toys. Finally, change the scenery by carrying your child over to the window and pointing out something interesting. Maybe it’s the squirrel climbing in the tree. Maybe an airplane flying overhead? Young kids have a short attention span. All you need to do is be a bit “sneaky” in changing your child’s focus while maintaining a positive state of mind. Then, following the distraction, give them something new to do.

In nearly every instance, tantrums and bad behavior are the result of a certain (negative) emotional state in your child. If you want to change the behavior, you need to change the emotional state first. Language is a powerful asset that parents can use to steer children into resourceful states. After all, kids don’t tend to misbehave or throw tantrums when they are laughing and smiling.

If you’d like to learn more of these simple and powerful communication strategies, simply visit http://TalkingToToddlers.com

This morning I was reading an article about customer service.  The author was saying how sick he was of crappy customer service from companies that send out a bunch of form letters (cut & paste type replies) that don’t match his problem.  I know how annoying this is.  That’s why I reply personally, with a real reply, when customers email me with any kind of technical problem, etc.

Say I get an email from a customer.  The email says, “Hi Chris – I just purchased the audio course yesterday and I didn’t have time to download it.  Now my link has expired.  What can I do?”.

When I get that email I will write back to make sure the customer knows these things:

1) I tell them that I understand the problem.  I explain that the links automatically expire after 24 hours. This helps prevent digital theft.

2) I tell them I am going to reset their link immediately.

3) I tell the customer that I’m there to help, and that I’m not going to leave them hanging.

This kind of personal treatment makes customers feel good about doing business with me.  I know this because of how many replies I get thanking me for the quick and helpful replies.

So how is this connected with parenting?

Imagine if your toddler or young child tells you they are hungry.  The “stock answer” that many parents will give is, “Oh, I’ll feed you lunch when we get home”.  Then you get a tantrum, or fussy behavior, etc.

What if you took on a “customer service” role instead.  You might enter your child’s world (as I teach in the free audio lesson).  You might say, “I understand you are hungry, and I’m going to help you”.  You might then explain the facts if your child is old enough to understand.  You can say, “We don’t have any food here.  But I know we have food at home.  Would you like to eat a snack as soon as we get home?  I can take you there very soon if you are really hungry”.

My audio course has plenty of techniques to help with this type of situation.  But if you were to just avoid using “stock answers”,which are a parent’s lazy solution to a problem, then you’ll get better results more often.  Try it and you’ll see.  When your child sees that you are there to help, they behave differently.

Click here to get more information about how to deal with toddlers

This weekend I was at the park with my two daughters while my wife was out for a few hours. The temperature is starting to get warmer in Toronto, but it was still barely above freezing. It was 3 degrees Celcius (37F). I had the girls dressed in winter coats, thin mittens, and thin hats.

It wasn’t the nicest day outside. It was pretty cloudy and wet. Besides us, there was only a father and his two sons at the park. The boys were probably 5 and 7. They were running around and happy.

But I noticed something odd. The younger boy had no coat on. He was running around with a short sleeve shirt and a pair of jogging pants. My assessment is that the father probably realized this was a bad idea. But I’m betting the kid would have thrown a tantrum if the father forced him to keep his coat on. So the father caved, and opted to instead risk his child get sick from exposure to the cold.

I realize that sometimes kids can be a handful. But let’s think about this trade off. Here we have a parent that consciously chose to allow his child to freeze in order to avoid a fight. That’s a bit crazy if you ask me.

Why am I so sure this was the trade-off? Because a few minutes later, after the boys stopped running around, the younger boy sat down on the slide. The slide was wet from the prior night’s rain. His pants got quite wet, and he started to complain. Then he started to cry that he wanted to go home. It was evident to me that this boy used the same tactic to get his Dad to let him take his coat off.

As someone who has studied hypnosis and NLP I’m taught to be observant of physical changes. This boy’s body position had changed and he was visibly cold. His skin color was more pale than a few minutes ago. He was holding his arms close to his body.

Did the father offer his son a coat? No. Instead he just (understandably) complied with the boy’s request to go home. But then the young boy said to his dad, “But I want to come back after I change my pants”. To this, the father said “No – we are going home and we’re staying home”. At this point, the boy’s crying turned from gentle sobbing into all-out screaming.

This was one of those times I wish the father had my audio course. He would have understood that there are easier ways to handle the situation. I always teach parents that saying “No” is a rapport-killer, and amplifies whatever negative state the child is already in. There are better ways to get the kids home without standing in the cold having a debate about whether you’ll all return to he park after changing. It would have been easy for the father to simply shift the conversation away from this debate.

In looking at my traffic on this blog, I see lots of traffic but not enough comments. I’d LOVE to hear your thoughts. What would you have done differently?

Enjoy your children,
Chris Thompson